CTF calls for Manitoba to join Alberta’s carbon tax challenge

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The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Manitoba to join Alberta in constitutionally challenging the federal carbon tax.

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Premier Danielle Smith said Tuesday that her province has applied for a judicial review of Ottawa’s exemption of the carbon tax on home heating oil, calling it “blatantly” unfair to those who rely on natural gas to heat their homes, as the majority of Manitobans do.

Alberta is asking the court to declare the exemption both unconstitutional and unlawful in hopes of seeing the carbon tax completely axed.

CTF Prairie director Gage Haubrich said Premier Wab Kinew and other provinces should follow suit, citing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement last October for a three-year exemption of the tax from home heating oil while boosting rebates for rural residents. He said the exemption disproportionately helps Atlantic Canadians.

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When the Supreme Court ruled the carbon tax permissible in March 2021, it said the threat of climate change is so great it demanded a co-ordinated national approach.

“When Trudeau announced his heating oil carve out, he admitted the carbon tax makes life more expensive, he admitted the carbon tax is all about politics and he left the vast majority of Canadians out in the cold,” Haubrich said in a release. “Kinew needs to take this new opportunity to join other provinces and fight the carbon tax in court.”

He pointed to a Leger poll from mid-October which found 60% of Canadians want the carbon tax removed from all home heating fuels — 56% of Manitobans use natural gas and 43% electricity according to data from the Nova Scotia department of finance in 2022. That number dropped to 55% in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, for which results were grouped in the poll.

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Manitoba has extended its exemption of 14 cents per litre provincial fuel tax through to the end of the year as a means of giving consumers a break from inflation and has said it will again review the gas tax holiday at year’s end. It’s estimated to have cost the province $340 million in revenue.

That part makes up the fuel charge in the federal government’s carbon tax. The feds also have an output-based pricing system for industries, which includes a federal carbon backstop for those who don’t have a pricing system that meets federal benchmarks. That includes Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut and Yukon.

The Winnipeg Sun contacted the premier’s office for comment and has yet to receive a response.

Kinew’s office said in late March it is working on a proposal to the federal government to eliminate the backstop, with the premier telling CBC that “Manitoba has a really strong case to make that we’ve got a very credible path to net zero.”

Kinew did not join in on a letter from seven premiers in March calling for a pause to the April 1 carbon tax increase.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi dismissed Smith’s legal effort as playing to her base ahead of a weekend party leadership review rather than working for a better deal for Albertans.

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